Reunion On Ganymede

by Simak Clifford

'Them tourists go nutty over it,' the pilot declared. That taxi of mine has been worked to death ever since the season started. There's something about old Jupiter that gets them.'

'I remember,' Jurg Tec said, 'that it was just like this before the battle. My pal and I walked out of camp to look at it.'

'I didn't know you Marshies ever got to be pals,' said Gramp. 'Figured you were too danged mean.'

'My pal,' said Jurg Tec, 'was killed the next day.'

'Oh,' said Gramp.

They walked in silence for a moment.

'I'm right sorry about your pal,' Gramp told the Martian then.

They topped the ridge.

There she is,' said the pilot, pointing.

Below them lay the dark shape of a huge space ship, resting crazily on the surface, with the stern tilted at a grotesque angle, the nose buried in the rock-hard soil.